?Retrocognition? won the animation category at the Wilmington Film Awards on Sunday.

The 13th annual Cape Fear Independent Film Festival came to a close Sunday evening with the Wilmington Film Awards, a gala and awards ceremony held in Front Street Brewery?s third story Beam Room. (View a photo gallery from the event.)

Local musician Jeffrey Holler was on hand to announce the winners, but not before going into an a cappella ode to the independent filmmaker sung to the tune of ?Hooray for Hollywood:? ??This is not Hollywood/ They couldn?t make it out in Hollywood/ They all moved out there for a very short time/ And now they?re back and they?re crashing on your couch.?

Jessica Sue Burstein wrote, directed and starred in ?Chicken,? winner of best short at the Wilmington Film Awards.

Holler announced the winners of awards in nine different categories, including the coveted cash prize awards given for best short and best feature. Filmmaker Jessica Sue Burstein accepted the award for best short for ?Chicken,? a 26-minute film that explores a temporary intimacy between two strangers who spend one night together.

Hoggard High School alumnus Michael Ferrell accepted the best feature award for his first full-length film, ?Twenty Million People.?

?Retrocognition? (pictured above) won the animation category with filmmaker Eric Patrick?s creative technique of animating a collage of photographs in synch with audio fragments from World-War-II-era radio dramas.

?Red Handed,? a stunning black-and-white noir project directed by Cape Fear Community College student Jordan Ray Allen, beat out the Wilmington-made contenders in the local category.

The World?s Fair hasn?t been held in the United States since the 1980s, and documentary filmmaker Jeffry Ford wants to know where it went. ?Where?s the Fair? beat out the CFIFF?s two other documentary nominees, ?Wicked Silence? and ?Death By China.?

?Susie?s Hope,? the true story of Donna Lawrence, a woman who rescued an abused pit bull named Susie despite barely surviving an attack from another pit bull, won the family catergory.

Mark Fisher?s short film ?Belly of the Wolf? took home honors in the horror category.

Susie?s Hope? won the family category at the Wilmington Film Awards.

Jaysen P. Buterin?s ?The Gospel? According to Booze, Bullets & Hot Pink Jesus,? an R-rated medley of strippers, professional lawn dart throwers and Mexican gangsters all seeking the same little hot pink Jesus statue, took home the comedy award. And Rob Underhill?s ?The Carrington Event,? a dramatic feature portraying a blackout that leaves a town on the brink of anarchy, beat out the contenders for the drama category.

"The Carrington Event" won the drama category at the Wilmington Film Awards.

The theme of this year?s festival was ?Be Your Own Hero,? and images of costumed superheroes were displayed throughout the four days of film screenings. Festival director Rich Gehron told Wilmington Film Awards attendees that when selecting the Director?s Choice Award, he tried to pick a film that resounded with that theme, not necessarily in content, but due to the nature of the project.

?I wanted to look a little bit beyond the characters of the films and look at the filmmakers themselves,? Gehron said. ?We?re going to recognize a film that took heroic action to make. It took a vision and it took courage to put something on the screen.?

Gehron chose ?Basilsk,? an erotic live action short by Jay O?Berski that features Gaza, a disabled woman who is empowered and unashamed of her sexuality.

For? next year, the CFIFF announced one more award to the Wilmington Film Awards: ?The Don,? an award named in memory of Wilmington native Don Payne, a scriptwriter for big productions like ?The Simpsons? who passed away in March. ?The Don? will be awarded to the film that exhibits the best scriptwriting at the 2014 CFIFF.

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The WAE: Wilmington-area Arts & Entertainment is dedicated to experiencing, discussing and promoting the arts in Southeastern N.C. From theater and all manner of music to visual art, dance, festivals and more, The WAE is populated by people who are immersed in local A&E. If it’s about A&E in Southeastern N.C., then we’re all about it.